


Death Like Dying

by sobrecogimiento



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobrecogimiento/pseuds/sobrecogimiento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sam gets Dean out of hell, Dean doens't remember anything except Sam. And that means anything. So Sam has bundles of fucking joy trying to deal with it. (Written between the S3 and S4 hiatus).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Like Dying

When Sam got Dean out of hell, one of the first things he said was I love you.

 

It slipped out unintentionally, after “Are you ok?” and “I am now” after “I’m sorry” and “Don’t be”.

 

“I love you,” Sam whispered out loud to the compact darkness somewhere at the back of his skull that was his brother’s soul. He said it because he’d forgotten exactly how much he missed him, because it felt like his presence was there in the flesh, because he hadn’t actually said it to him since they were kids, before it wasn’t cool and long before it would mean too much.

 

But when he said it, Dean asked,  _What’s that mean?_  If it had been sarcastic, from having just gotten out of a place where such a thing probably didn’t exist, or angry, because Sam hadn’t saved him beforehand like he swore he would, he could have understood that. But it didn’t. All Dean sounded was confused, like he knew that from somewhere but wasn’t able to put his finger on it at the moment, just couldn’t get it.

 

He got it even less when Sam started crying.

 

*

When Sam got Dean out of hell, one of the first things he did was get him back in his body.

 

The lack of space inside his own head hurt, as did the conflicting thoughts and opinions and feelings that resulted from two spirits sharing the same space. Sam couldn’t take Dean’s extra fucking onions, and more than once he had to forcibly block him out, fence him in the nether regions of his brain, so he could get through dinner without having a monster case of indigestion, even if the migraine Dean gave him trying to bust out was almost worse.

 

At least, he thought, as he popped a Vicodin and prepared to sleep it through, he didn’t have to worry about Dean possessing other people. The one time he’d told him that was strictly against the rules, Dean had cowered and shivered, or done whatever the shade-version of those actions were, and the wave of terror that had emanated from him at the thought of being that far away from Sam couldn’t have been a lie.

 

For days before the fact, Sam showed Dean every photograph of him that he had, told him that  _this_ was what he looked like, scared that when he did put himself back together a monster, half-human and half-hell-spawn, would arise out of the ashes. He made the preparations carefully in the cellar of an abandoned farm-house that he’d scoped out before hand, chalked the circle by candlelight behind shuttered and tar-papered windows that barely peeped above the ground, sprinkled his brother’s ashes and the necessary ingredients in the middle, finished with nearly a pint of his own blood, still warm from the vein.

 

“Let’s have fun playing Fullmetal Alchemist,” Sam muttered, remembering some Japanese cartoon he’d watched at three in the morning in Palo Alto when he couldn’t sleep.

 

Dean didn’t want to leave the spot he’d curled himself into in Sam’s head, but Sam had brought him in and he could get him out—he was strong enough to do that now. Wincing with pain, he expelled him forcibly, charcoal dust and silver smoke that was Dean’s soul trapped in the confines of the circle, and even then he could feel how scared he was. With a whispered promise that it would be over soon, Sam recited the incantation from memory, eyes closed and more terrified of the result than he’d been of anything else in his life.

 

But when it was over, when the wind died down and the smoke settled and he could actually look, it was Dean in the middle of the circle, a little thinner and with darker splotches beneath his eyes than the last time he’d seen him, but it was still unmistakably him, and not some creature that wasn’t even recognisable as human, much less as his brother. When he got closer, Sam could see that his eyes were the old green instead of the pure, liquid black that he’d been expecting, and it was more than he’d hoped for.

 

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said, grinning weakly, falling flat on his ass when he tried to stand.

 

Sam helped him up with muttered reassurance and questions about his well-being that were ignored. It surprised him that Dean had to learn to walk again, was wobbly on his feet like Sam had only seen him when he was drunk off his ass and too young to take it. But within minutes he remembered, and was stable enough to climb the stairs.

 

“Sammy?” Dean asked, suddenly stopping about halfway up. “How come you have these things and I don’t?”

 

“They’re called clothes, Dean,” he explained resignedly. “I can get you some in a minute.”

 

“Really?” Dean said, frowning and still trying to get a grip on reality and things like clothes that hadn’t existed in hell and he hadn’t needed in Sam’s head. “Um, ok.”

 

By this point Sam had a slight headache that he supposed was from blood loss, and he wanted to just smack some sense into him, make him remember, but when he turned and looked at him, Dean’s face and eyes held only absolute trust, and his heart clenched. He wondered if Dean still knew that he’d let him down.

 

*

In the following weeks, Sam guessed he was getting a crash-course in all the things Dean had once had to explain to him in the role of the older brother, and then some.

 

The fact that Dean didn’t remember how to do anything from drive properly to tie his own damned shoes without being re-taught first was scary enough, but at least he learned fast, and when he did figure it out he always rolled his eyes and sighed like it had been obvious and he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t gotten it before. Sam took this as reassurance, a sign that he was returning to a loosely defined version of normal. What was even worse was when Sam had to explain to him who their mother and father were, what had happened with the Yellow-Eyed Demon and Lilith, even had to remind him of people in their lives like Jess and Cassie and Bobby and Ellen and Jo, tell him who they were and how they met them. Unlike basic motor skills, he was never sure if Dean really got it, if the deeply confused frown on his face and the wrinkles in his forehead signified that he couldn’t believe that he’d forgotten it or just couldn’t remember it at all.

 

Sam had absolutely no experience as far as being the older brother, and having Dean trust him, expect him to take care of things, was weird—not entirely unpleasant, not unmanageable, but weird. If it hadn’t been for the initial confusion that he’d felt first-hand permeating his brother’s soul before Dean got his own body, Sam would have thought that this was a defence mechanism, a sign of how badly hell had scarred him, a different kind of post-traumatic stress that made him revert to childhood.

 

But even so, Sam found himself stuck dealing with things that Dean hadn’t had to deal with for him, explaining things that he’d been old enough to figure out on his own. Like the time Dean shook him awake at six in the morning, pointed at his groin, and said, “Why’s it doing that?”

He absolutely couldn’t understand why that made Sam go an interesting shade of strawberry, made him turn away and mumble at him to take the first shower. Half an hour later, when Dean poked his head out of the bathroom and said, “Sam? I figured out why it was doing that,” he wondered again why all of the blood in his brother’s body had apparently gathered in his face.

 

There was a cruel irony in this, Sam thought, because now that he had Dean back he missed him more than ever. Sam didn’t know how to be the caretaker, but he could figure out how to live with it. What he couldn’t live with was how Dean had changed, become an awkward little kid instead of the old, cocky, confident, know-it-all that Sam had once been annoyed by endlessly but now missed so very badly. It hurt him that Dean hardly drank anymore, didn’t shoot pool or play poker at all, just sat there with the confused expression that was becoming uncomfortably familiar and watched him earn their money by gambling, trying to remember how to do that again. It hurt him that Dean didn’t hit on girls anymore, blushed and stammered if one so much as said hi to him, that he seemed to have lost interest in driving, saying that Sam did it better, wouldn’t do it unless Sam forced him, and then kept both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road, more careful than he’d been in years. It hurt that Sam was scared to take him hunting and that he didn’t even have to tell him no because Dean didn’t ask.

 

At one point, after something stupid like not knowing how to put gas in the car, Sam almost yelled in exasperation, “Jesus, Dean, what  _do_ you remember?”

 

“I remembered you,” Dean said. “I never forgot.”

 

Sam huffed. “Why the hell would you remember me and not Dad or the fucking demon that put you down there in the first place?”

 

“’Cause you’re my Sammy,” he said, grinning wide and bright like the rising sun because for once he had the right answer.

 

It hurt that hearing him say that made his heart swell.

 

*

When Dean kissed him, Sam at first wondered if something from hell was finally breaking through, remnants of what the demons had done to him, but Dean didn’t have his old poker-face anymore, and when he broke away his expression showed the usual confusion, times about ten.

 

They were in another room in another one-horse town, kind they kept moving to aimlessly. Dean couldn’t hunt until he got better and Sam couldn’t go anywhere without him and was too restless to stay still. It happened at random, Dean suddenly dropping into the chair next to him and pulling Sam away from the laptop by grabbing the hair at the back of his head, kissing him on the mouth gently, a few seconds before sucking on his lower lip and leaning back, hands dropped to his sides and face flushing red.

 

And all Sam wanted to do was sit on him, straddle his hips in the crappy chair of fake wood and kiss him back to show him that it was ok, because fuck, Dean had been giving him those looks since before he went to college, and when Sam had realised or even suspected it, it led him to have some thoughts about Dean that he probably shouldn’t have been having, thoughts that hit him in the shower or in bed late at night. But he forced his upstairs brain to do the thinking, asked, “Dean, what in the hell was that?”

 

“I dunno, Sammy,” Dean muttered, ducking his head self-consciously. “It kinda felt ok, though.”

 

To Sam it had felt like the missing piece of a puzzle slipping into place. But he couldn’t act on it, not with Dean like this, still so awkward and unsure. “Never mind,” he said briskly, trying to wash it away. “Let’s go get some food.”

 

This made Dean perk up as Sam knew it would, almost erase what he’d done or come close to doing in the half-lighted motel room.

 

At the bar, Sam tried to leave his brother stranded at the counter, made sure he got two beers down and said only, “Bathroom,” before taking off and leaving Dean with the brown-haired bartender, breasts pouring out of her tube top almost to the point of indecent exposure, because he figured that was what he needed, and that Dean’s libido and the alcohol coursing through him would agree with him. He just wished it didn’t hurt. He wished he didn’t have tears in his eyes as he shut himself in the empty bathroom, and when he bit away strips of dead skin from his lower lip, he went too deep and tasted blood.

 

He wished it didn’t feel good when Dean barged in the bathroom he was hiding in, not even five minutes later, wide-eyed and white as a sheet, grabbed his upper arms and clung to him, finally let it out in a stream of babble that seemed like purging. “Sammy don’t leave me there like that again you don’t understand I can’t—” He stopped, took a deep, shuddering breath. “They hurt me,” he whispered. “When I was down there, they hurt me. You were the only thing I had left. I let them have everything else, but I kept you. And they—” His hands tightened on Sam’s arms in pain and rage, and his brother knew with a sudden, sickening feeling just what they’d done to hurt him. “I don’t,” he said, gesturing with a nod towards the outer room. “I can’t. I don’t trust—only you.” Dean looked up into his eyes suddenly, gaze full of hurt and want and need. “Please, Sam, let’s just go back to the room.”

 

Sam nodded like he understood, which he wasn’t sure if he did, hugged him close and kissed him on the forehead because Dean had said once that was what their mother did when she left for some reason and he had to stay with Dad.

 

This time, behind a locked door and closed shades, when Dean kissed him Sam returned it. Each article of clothing removed was painful, closer to the vulnerability he’d felt in hell, each touch was a reminder. But Sam was gentle and demons were anything but, and every time he tried to ease up, go slower, Dean pulled him closer like he was trying to get his soul inside him again. It had been the only time in his life and death that he’d really felt safe, and trust and years of need allowed him to start to recover.

 

The mechanics of it were obvious enough, but Sam didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to do anything that even came close to what the demons might have done, so when he mostly carried him to bed all he did was wrap a hand around his cock, kiss Dean gently beyond his surprised stiffness. He relaxed after a few strokes and started returning the favour, whispered obscenities into Sam’s tongue gently raking the inside of his mouth that sounded more like prayers.

 

Some part of Sam’s brain was telling him  _brother,_ was telling him  _wrong,_ was telling him that this would only get both of them back in hell in a few short decades. But the way Dean moulded to fit him silenced it. It was Sam’s fault he was like this, Sam who had gotten his spinal cord cut through and caused Dean to make that deal, Sam who hadn’t saved him in time. And he’d do anything for his brother, especially now, even if the realm of ‘anything’ had expanded beyond its previous meaning.

 

Dean slept in Sam’s arms that night, come a sticky mess on their hands and thighs and stomachs that they didn’t bother to wash off before morning.

 

It was worse in daylight; they didn’t know how to look at each other once the sun came up, but at least they smiled, if sheepishly, when they did.

 

But Dean was still worrying the hell out of him and Sam needed something—he didn’t know what, but something—to make sure that this was ok, that it hadn’t screwed his brother up more than he already was. He found ‘something’ when Dean grabbed the keys from him and said that he was driving, stuck in a cassette and sang out of tune for the next hundred miles. He found it when Dean turned to him and said, “Hey, Sam, can you teach me to shoot again? I wanna go back to hunting.”

 

He found it that evening in another restaurant-bar, when they got a booth table and Dean slid in next to him, pressed the length of his leg against Sam’s and didn’t move until they paid the check. And he found it that night in the motel room, when Dean kissed him with some of his old confidence and didn’t stop until they were in bed again.

 

Sam didn’t know where this came from, beyond the dark, secret looks they’d been giving each other for the past ten years. He wondered why neither of them had done this before, and if it that would have been a good or bad thing. All he knows for sure is that it would have made it all that much harder when Dean died.

 

Sometimes, Sam was so fucking sure that they were going to hell that it hit him like a lead weight dropping in his stomach. The thought of letting Dean go back to that was more than he could stand, and he began to seriously consider talking him into vampirism. Before he knew it, Dean would hit thirty, and from there on, it would seem like a headlong rush towards death. But they had both died before, and he wanted to give him a different hopefully better death that wasn’t like dying at all. Then again, he didn’t know and wasn’t sure that he wanted to know how long, exactly, eternity was, and after the first several millennia, if they could stick around that long, he wasn’t sure that hell would be entirely worse than Earth.

 

There was a part of Sam that wanted to go to hell and kill every demon that had done this to his brother. But the truth remained that he still primarily blamed himself, and he wouldn’t put Dean through that again for his ego or his righteous anger.

 

Meanwhile, Sam tried to fool himself into thinking that they still had time, do the best he could by Dean day to day, and hope that was enough. And sometimes, when Dean slipped further back into their version of normal or smiled at him after a successful hunt or kissed him like it was just a natural part of who they were to each other, it was. So they would walk this path together even if it ended in damnation, and every time Dean looked at him with the joy and love and absolute trust that he didn’t deserve, Sam felt with renewed vengeance to make sure that the next time they died, their deaths wouldn’t feel like dying. 

~End


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